Semmelweis was trying to convince doctors to wash their hands in the 1850s!
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @TheWeaseKing and
right, but through trial and error I believe, not because he had a well developed understanding of germs.
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Replying to @nberlat @TheWeaseKing and
I think we are crossing plots here. My assumption is a 19th century doctor was aware of how the scientific method works and it probably shaped his thinking.
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @TheWeaseKing and
this is absolutely false! the scientific method is a modern day invention and historians and philosophers of science generally believe it has little to do with how science works!
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Replying to @nberlat @TheWeaseKing and
I think this debate is suffering from “science is what I say science is” and “the scientific method is what I say it is.”
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @nberlat and
Well, no, it's acknowledging that if "science" literally just means "knowing things" then it becomes a much less useful term and then there's no such thing as a "pre-scientific civilization" etc
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat and
So you and Noah are arguing that science doesn’t exist and thus we can’t thank science for life expectancy being what it is today. If that’s where you want to take this debate then
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @arthur_affect and
No, I think they're arguing that "science" as presented in pop culture and in high school lectures about the "scientific method" are very, VERY different from the actual messy reality of trying to do science. And I can confirm this from my own experience as a scientist.
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Replying to @Snoofleglax @arthur_affect and
That’s the problem. Noah never says how he defines science while claiming his unclear definition of science is not responsible for improving life expectancy.
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @Snoofleglax and
defining science is an extremely difficult problem which people have been working on for decades and probably centuries!
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The precise demarcation between "natural philosophy" and "science" is this big whole thing, yes Arguing that it doesn't exist and that Aristotle was therefore a scientist is fine, it's just kind of a hot take
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat and
That's the whole thing, we make fun of Aristotle just declaring women have fewer teeth than men without ever bothering to check in any way as the antithesis of science But, after all, all scientists do to some degree just assume things that just make sense and everyone knows
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